MIT OpenCourseWare http://ocw.mit.edu For information about citing these materials or our Terms of Use, visit: http://ocw.mit.edu/terms. 21L.017 The Art of the Probable: Literature and Probability Spring 200821L.017: ART OF THE PROBABLE Professors Kibel, Jackson, Raman Spring, 2008 Essay 2 Assignment This list of questions is a compilation of all the questions drawn from different instructors. 1. The third epistle of Pope’s Essay on Man opens with the following pronouncement: “Here then we rest: ‘The Universal Cause / Acts to one end, but acts by various laws.’” Situate the argument(s), exempla, and dominant images of Pope’s third epistle in relation to this claim. Consider to what effect Pope sketches the original state of nature, and humankind’s fall from it, in paragraphs IV-VI. 2. Exposing its characters to physical catastrophes and moral atrocities of all kinds, Candide presents a sweeping and devastatingly funny critique of Leibniz’s claim that of all possible worlds ours is indubitably the best. Yet Voltaire’s novel does more than poke fun at philosophical optimism. Consider that Pangloss, the proponent of this view, has no more presence in the text than Martin, the representative of pessimism. Consider that Candide has from one perspective as much to do with human responses to disaster as with the notion that the universe is badly arranged. Consider the El Dorado episode and the book’s concluding piece of wisdom: “We must cultivate our garden.” Write an essay, accounting for these or other features of the book that do not immediately translate into a satire on Leibniz’s philosophic viewpoint, and draw some conclusions about the overall purpose of the book. 3. For David Hume, the principle of association is an idea fundamental to understanding how we make causal inferences on the basis of experience. This principle of association furnishes a formal structure for Yorick’s travels in A Sentimental Journey as well. Analyze Sterne’s use of association as both a characterological and a fictional principle – that is, as a premise informing both the movement of Yorick’s mind and the shape of the narrative itself. In what ways does association represent a principle of order and/or disorder in Sterne’s novel? 4. Voltaire’s Candide (like the selected entries from his Philosophical Dictionary) does more than poke fun at philosophical optimism. Consider that Pangloss, the proponent of the view, has no more presence in the text than Martin, the representative of pessimism. Consider that the evils besetting the protagonists are all of human origin save two–the Lisbon earthquake and a plague mentioned by the old woman–and that even here the issue has more to do with human responses to disaster than with the fact that the universe is badly arranged. Consider the El Dorado episode and the book’s concluding piece of wisdom: “We must cultivate our garden.” Write an essay, accounting for these or other features of the book that do not immediately translate into a satire on Leibniz’s philosophic viewpoint, and draw some conclusions about the overall purpose of the book. 5. For John Locke, the association of ideas arises variously by nature, chance, or custom -- and indeed is of the same source as madness. For David Hume, too, association is a fundamental idea and central to his account of causality. Arguably, some form of the principle of association furnishes a formal structure for Yorick’s travels in A Sentimental Journey as well. Analyze Sterne’s use of mental association as both a characterological and a fictional principle – that is, as a premise informing both the movement of Yorick’s mind and also the shape of the narrative itself. In what ways does association represent a principle of order and/or disorder in Sterne’s novel? 6. Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature characterizes belief (synonymous with the “vivacity” ofperception) as proportioned to the frequency and constancy of experience. On the one hand, this argument represents a forceful critique of what it is possible to know through reason – “all probable reasoning,” Hume insists, “is nothing but a species of sensation” (T, 103). On the other hand, Hume maintains that our emotions and sentiments are intuitively exact; our feelings, in other words, are as subject to quantitative measurement as are objective frequencies of occurrence. Discuss the measurement or quantification of sympathy, emotion, or belief in a few episodes from Sterne and/or Wordsworth. 7. Among the selection of passages in our readings of Leibniz there is set of passages headed “The Principle of Sufficient Reason.” In it, Leibniz defines the principle in three ways: first, as the principle that nothing happens without a reason; second, as the principle that a reason can be given for every truth; and third, “as is commonly said,” nothing happens without a cause. In this connection, Leibniz distinguishes between true propositions that can be known per se (i.e., in themselves) and true propositions which have an a priori proof. It is the latter to which the principle of sufficient reasons applies. There is something odd about this distinction. The sort of propositions that can be known per se are those of mathematics and logic; all other sorts of propositions refer to contingent facts. The oddity is this: things known a priori are things known not by experience but by a strict deduction from premises to conclusion–a process that Leibniz (and Hume after him) calls a “demonstration.” For instance, because the theorems of Euclid are demonstrations, we understand that we do not appeal to experience when we claim that the angles of a triangle sum to 180 degrees. Rather, we regard this feature as inherent in the idea of a triangle per se, which is exactly what we mean when we say that the proposition linking the feature to the thing is a priori. In contrast, the redness of an apple or the truth of the proposition “this apple is red” is not linked to the idea of this or any apple in particular except by a contingent chain of causation. We have to experience the apple to know its color and we have to chase up the links of causation to account for its color. But Leibniz seems to be saying that even though this apple is not linked per se to its coloration, just the same it is linked to its coloration a priori. Making use of other readings (the reading,